Not Pink, and the Social Babies

Apparently I still have more to say. I'd like to think you're surprised by this but I know better.

Having boys and 4 nephews has made me realize the amount of pink kids clothes at any given store is severely disproportionate to the amount of non-pink. I can easily find 5 pink, flower-encrusted, girly outfits that I just LOVE for every 1 boy one that I don't hate. My dreams of purchasing similar-but-not-identical clothes for the boys are gone. I'm lucky if they even have two of the same thing in the right size.

So, when Melissa posted about her husband's blog about resisting pinkification, I pretty much had to read it. Go team blue!

There were two developmental items I forgot to post about last night. The first is that Zach now likes to hug me around the neck. He'll just reach out and wrap his little arms around me. The downside is sometimes he likes to also grab on with his hands and gives me a good pinch or hair pull. I'll take what I can get, though.

The second thing is that the babies now expect people to stop and say hi to them when we're out. They have begun preemptively greeting strangers to help the process along. How, you might ask? They can say "Hi!" or "Hey!" No, really. I'm not making this up. We were in the grocery store the other day, walking down the pop and chips aisle. I had Zach in the baby carrier and a woman was coming towards us. Zach yells "Hi!" and the woman, without missing a beat, says "Hey!" and keeps on going. I'm not hearing things or reading into their baby babble if strangers think the same. The boys might not know what "hi" means specifically, but they know it's something you say to people to get attention.

Something similar happened on our Best Buy trip. We went to the customer service desk and Zach did his "Hey!" thing to the Geek Squad guy behind the counter. The guy responded in kind and Zach just grinned and grinned. Tonight Jim and I were talking about their desire for attention. Jim mentioned that he kind of feels bad when we don't get stopped, since the boys love it so much. I didn't realize it until he said it, but I feel the same way. I don't like sticking out in public or drawing notice to myself, but the boys just beam and chat up anyone they come across.